 |
 |
 |
 |
|||||||||||
 |
 |
|||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
||||
|
|
|||||||||||||
 |
 |
|
|
Preserving The Past |
|
| New Milton Sand and Ballast’s continued commitment to preserving the past has resulted in some exciting discoveries about how people lived and worked as far back as the Iron Age. All our sites are thoroughly examined in partnership with Archaeology specialists prior to any work or starting. By doing this we ensure we have ample opportunity understand what the history of the site before we move it forward in to the future. NMSB privately fund excavations and share the finds with the community at large. Between 1999 and 2003 Wessex Archaeology carried out a program of archaeological work in advance of gravel extraction at Efford Landfill, southwest of Lymington on the north shore of the western Solent. A maze of pits and ditches, the earliest of which were the remains of Late Iron Age/Early Roman and medieval salt production, were discovered. The majority of the ditch systems, pits and mounds represent evidence of the medieval salt workings. They are the remains of an efficient system by which salt marsh mud was piled up and washed, and the resulting salt-rich solution channeled inland. The ditch system allowed the salty water to settle and become more concentrated by evaporation before being heated by peat fires until the salt crystals. Salt working and land reclamation have changed the landscape of these salt marshes many times. And now they have changed once more as the area has been carefully landscaped with new lakes to create a haven for wildlife. |
|||||
|
|
|||||
